In the terrific comedy TV series, Silicon Valley (2014-2019), there’s a classic scene for privacy law nerds. The show depicts the world of Silicon Valley and the culture of the tech industry. The show illustrates the frenetic pace of building a tech startup, the frequent pivots and existential moments, the constant quest for funding, and the ruthless competition. The potential harms of technologies are often ignored in the potent quest for power and success.
In one hilarious scene from Season 4, Episode 2, Dinesh realizes that the company’s chat service has been violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires a privacy notice and parental consent for collecting personal data from children online. Dinesh is asked whether there are records of the chats on the company’s server.
Dinesh replies, “Yeah, we store everything. How serious is this?” This line shows how the failure to engage in data minimization can bite one in the end.
He is told that each violation of COPPA has a penalty of $16,000. Dinesh laughs it off: “Oh, no. I hope they take cash.”
But Dinesh then learns that the fines are $16,000 per user per use. Jared takes out a calculator and calculates a fine of $21 billion.
As the description doesn’t do justice to the scene, fortunately, you can watch it here on YouTube.
Later on, they contemplate shutting down the chat service but they decide not to do so: “Well, technically, this is a corporation. So whatever they fine you, they’ll really only be able to collect what the company’s worth, which at this point, is basically nothing.”
A later episode explores privacy concerns with technology that will render encryption useless.
Since you must be a privacy law nerd to read this far in my post, I’ll offer you a treat: I created a whiteboard for COPPA, a 1-page visual summary of the law. You can download a PDF free for personal use here.
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Daniel J. Solove is the Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is the founder of TeachPrivacy, a company that provides workforce privacy, cybersecurity security, and AI training to companies and organizations around the world. He is the author of 10+ books and 100+ articles.
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